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Thursday, December 21, 2006 |
Recently throughout the blogosphere, a discussion has begun to gain steam about how exactly Google's supplemental results are determined, and what steps webmasters can take in order to rescue these left-for-dead pages and return them to the main index.
Editor's Note: Google's supplemental indexing system has been
the topic of much conversation recently throughout the blogosphere. What is the
supplemental index? How does a site end up there? What can a site do to get out
of it? Let us know at WebProWorld.
In what can seem like a black hole of search results, Google's supplemental index seems to be growing at a steady, almost ominous rate. As the company refines how it ranks and indexes pages, those left behind the curb are surprisingly finding themselves relegated to the "dead zone" of search.
What is a Supplemental Result? According to Google:
A supplemental result is just like a regular web result, except that it's pulled
from our supplemental index. We're able to place fewer restraints on sites that
we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for
our main index.
For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being
crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and
added to our supplemental index.
I want to meet the PR person that wrote this, because this is some of the
best spin I have ever seen. Google wants webmasters to be happy that the supplemental
index offers "less restraints" on sites - never mind the fact that there's virtually
no way the site will rank highly in any keyword by existing in the SI.
Let's just say, for arguments sake, that a webmaster would want his/her site to rank highly in Google's main index. (This is a pretty bourgeois concept, I know.) What steps would need to be taken to avoid ending up in the dead zone?
First, we should look at how sites end up there in the first place. Search Engine Guide's Matt McGee outlines some trouble spots that could contribute to a site's inclusion with in the supplemental index:
• Duplicate content. This is often the main reason a page ends up in the supplemental index.
• Too many variables (parameters) in the URL. Google mentions this on the "help" page linked up above.
• Poor overall link profile. Matt Cutts specifically mentioned earlier this year that the Bigdaddy software upgrade would result in more supplemental results for "sites where our algorithms had very low trust in the inlinks or the outlinks of that site. Examples that might cause that include excessive reciprocal links, linking to spammy neighborhoods on the web, or link buying/selling."
• The page is buried. Orphaned pages are candidates to go supplemental. These are pages which can only be reached by a deep crawl of your site's internal links, or pages which can't be reached at all.
There doesn't seem to be a big mystery here. These types of improvements
are common when it comes to SEO, and you would be hard pressed to find anyone
who is knowledgeable about search that didn't already understand the importance
of these fundamental concepts.
Vanessa Fox, however, lets us in on a tip
that may not be so obvious in a Google Groups post outlining the critique of a
site:
About
the Author:
Joe Lewis is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. |
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A
Fight About PPC And SEO
 By
Chris Richardson
Staff Writer | WebProNews
Which one of these methods is the most effective when it comes to search engine
marketing? Is it a "one or the other" technique or is a successful SEM campaign
dependent on prudent utilization of both techniques? These questions have been
brought to the forefront thanks to a brewing disagreement between parties supporting
each side.
The tension started (this time) when an article appearing in DMNews.com questioned whether or not SEO techniques were a legitimate need of the prospective search engine marketer. Dave Pasternack of Did-It.com wrote the article. One of the points of Pasternack's is SEO is "fix-it-and-forget-it" exercise that doesn't need constant monitoring; an idea that left a number of SEO providers shocked and disappointed.
One such SEO provider, Greg Boser, took issue with Pasternack's article but kept
quiet... that is until another
article appeared at ClickZ saying essentially the same thing as Pasternack's
work. Kevin Lee, also of Did-It.com and SEMPO, wrote the second article. In his
writing, Lee indirectly compared search optimizers to spammers while saying they
took a scatter-shot approach to improving rankings. However, in Lee's defense,
it's never clear whether he is talking about those who spam search engines or
the SEO industry in general.
About
the Author:
Chris Richardson is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. |
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Yahoo Paid Directory Inclusion
Remember me? Well I'm filling in for Chris Richardson again while he's busying
putting up new stories for you to read. Our featured post today comes from caravan.
They have a client who's trying to keep up with their competitors in the search
engine rankings market. They found out that their competitor has inbound links
coming from the commercial section of Yahoo's directory. The problem is in order
to be included into that directory you have to pay the required fee.
What caravan, needs from you is your opinion on whether or not they should pay the fee to be included. Would having that inbound link be worth the $299 price tag? I'm counting on you to help out a fellow member, so let us know what you think.
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Yahoo
Paid Directory Inclusion
I've been reviewing the inbound links for a clients competitors and have found that they have a link from the commercial section of Yahoo's Directory.
In order to gain a link in the same section would require a paid inclusion of $299 (non-refundable). Do you think it's worth going for a paid inclusion to a subject related section of the Yahoo directory? Yahoo is already returning good results for the chosen keywords. So I'm thinking why bother. Would we just be paying for a recognised inbound link from a high ranking directory?
Would a paid inclusion to the directory be a backdoor to receiving inbound links/traffic from other sites in much the same way as an inclusion on dmoz will see your site listed with other directories thus boosting links?
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